Cruel Hearts (King’s Crossing #2)

Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

Zane

T here’s blood everywhere.

I know it’s supposed to be. The fake blood in the pouch Mel bought looked like the real thing.

Bright, sticky, red.

It was my job to pop the bag but I didn’t touch her. I kneel at Stella’s side. Her eyelids are fluttering, but she’s not with me. This wasn’t the plan. Paulo was supposed to be shooting a prop gun.

People scream around me, scurrying down the sidewalk, searching for cover or using their phones to film Stella and me. I can’t move. Then suddenly Max is crouching beside me, and I can’t figure out why he’s here or where he came from.

“Stick with the plan,” he mutters.

“Someone shot her,” I say, numb. The words don’t make any sense.

“Yeah, I saw it.” Max raises his voice and says, “we need to get her to the hospital.”

I grip his shoulder. “He really shot her.”

Behind his glasses, his eyes widen. “Your chauffeur’s here. Drive her to the hospital. Mel will take care of it,” he reminds me.

But there’s nothing Mel can do about this.

Blood drips down her side and pools on the sidewalk. So carefully, I wiggle my hand under her back and my arm beneath her knees and pick her up. She’s dead weight, and her head lolls, her hair sticking in the blood saturating the scarf tied around her shoulders.

Douglas opens the door for us, his face ashen and his eyes wet. I didn’t notice him park in front of the restaurant and I don’t know how much he saw. I sit with her in my lap in back of the town car, and the scream of sirens slashes at me like a knife. The cops can follow us to the hospital. There’s no way I’m waiting for an ambulance, even though she truly needs one now.

Holding Stella tightly against my chest, I press my face against the top of her head. Max sits across from me, and I hide my grief.

She’s not breathing, and I pray.

The last words she heard were me telling her to fuck off. The last thing she saw was me raising my hand to hit her.

My Stella.

I keen into her hair.

Douglas runs through every red light that attempts to stop us and reaches the hospital in under fifteen minutes. It doesn’t matter. Mel taped Stella’s fake blood pouch near her left breast. Paulo shot her straight through the heart.

Her blood saturates my suit, and it smells sickly sweet.

Like death.

I gag.

Douglas parks under the canopy and opens the door. Tears run down his ruddy cheeks, and he tries to help me out of the car. He holds his hands out, but I jerk away. I won’t let him touch her, and I carry her into the ER by myself. The place is familiar after Quinn’s and my tour, and it’s just as busy. Two rival gangs chose tonight to fight a territory war, and there’s not an available doctor anywhere.

A curvy woman wearing mint green scrubs who has pitch black hair and dark purple circles under her eyes wheels a stretcher to me. “Lay her on here. Mel’s waiting.”

“She’s dead.”

She gives me an odd look. “She’s supposed to be.”

Gently, I lay Stella onto the pristine white sheet, her body limp and lifeless.

The nurse pushes the stretcher down the crowded hallway. No one gives her a second glance.

Max and I stand in the middle of the ER, Stella’s blood on my hands.

There’s nothing more I can do.

“You need to go outside and talk to the reporters. Stick to the plan,” Max says. “Are you going to be okay? She’ll be fine, Zane. You two practiced this all day.”

He doesn’t understand. He was right there, and he doesn’t understand what happened.

My mouth doesn’t move and I can’t speak. He nudges me toward the automatic doors. The paparazzi have gotten wind of Stella’s death just like we knew they would. I step outside and they holler at me, taking my picture to profit from my loss.

I had a speech planned, and some of the words wisp through the sorrow fogging my brain. Gold digger, tramp. I was supposed to renounce her. Call her a fraud, a whore. Anything to put distance between us. To lead Ash to believe I hate her and wouldn’t have done anything to help her, in any way. To convince him that she and I were done for good. But all I can think of is how she felt in my arms. How soft her lips were under mine.

How sweet the words were when she told me she loved me. Even after everything I’ve done to her.

How big her heart was.

How compassionate.

How much she gave up.

Now I’ll never have the chance to pay her back.

I stare at the photographers, the reporters shouting questions I can’t answer.

A detective approaches me, briefly flashing his badge, and putting a hand to my shoulder, he urges me back inside the ER and asks the receptionist if there’s a quiet place to sit.

She’s in the middle of answering the phone and only points down a dimly lit corridor.

The detective’s tired, old. He has kind eyes, but I can’t trust him. I don’t know who Ash has on his payroll.

“What happened tonight, Mr. Maddox?” he asks, shifting on the plastic chair and pulling a small spiral notepad and pen out of his jacket pocket.

“We were fighting.” She looked beautiful. Tired, sore, but she’d looked so beautiful.

“Then what?”

He doesn’t write anything down, just sits next to me.

Listens.

“We were on the sidewalk. Some asshole wanted my wallet. I thought he was kidding.”

“Did you get a look at him?”

“Not really. About my height. Skinny. Dressed in black. Baseball cap on his head. Downtown was busy, you know?”

“Yeah. Lots going on.”

“Yeah.”

“This guy, did he seem like a druggie? Twitchy?”

I shrug. “Maybe. It’s all a blur.”

It doesn’t matter what I tell the cops. They won’t find Paulo. Mel’s brother is good at his job. I wonder if Mel is in on it, if she’s ever been on my side, and how much Ash is paying her to turn on me.

“We’ll see what we can find,” the detective says, running a hand over his face. “This fucking gang stuff. Could’ve been one of those little pricks, huh? We’ll do what we can, but it doesn’t look promising. He’s long gone. She got a family? Next of kin?”

Numbly, I shake my head. “No one.” I’d been her only family. Me and Zarah.

“Okay. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“We weren’t together.” Playing. Still playing.

He nods. “Try not to think about it. And next time, just give ’em your wallet or else it will be you.”

I sit on the plastic chair, lost in the past, lost in memories, and I hurt too badly to cry.

Time slips by. God, I don’t know how much. A minute? Ten? Hours? I finally heave out of the chair and stagger to my feet.

Max is gone, the paparazzi scattered.

Douglas is waiting in the parking lot, the gleaming town car looking ridiculous among the beat-up sedans and family vehicles. The evening’s humidity hasn’t let up, and he stands outside in the heat, sweat dripping down his temples, leaning against the vehicle. He didn’t know Stella well—she didn’t use him as a driver very often—but what he knew of her, he loved.

She did that to people.

Silently, he drives in the direction of the Crowne. He should be bringing me to the penthouse. I should be pretending everything is normal, that this isn’t affecting me at all. I would rather do that. I don’t want to go to the hotel, but I have to tell Quinn, Denton, and my sister that Paulo, a man I let under our roof, killed Stella in cold blood.

Now I know how my father’s attorney felt when he had to tell Zarah and me our parents were dead.

Fuck.

Douglas parks near the lobby’s entrance. The car sticks out in the empty parking lot, and if Ash is tracking me, he’ll know exactly where I am. Maybe I’m paranoid thinking Ash is watching my every move, but it won’t be long before he hears the news of Stella’s death. He may already know, and I need to be careful.

I can say I’m hiding here, avoiding the press, but the less I say to anyone, the safer we all are.

In the Presidential Suite, Max, Nathalie, Denton, and Quinn are watching live coverage of Stella’s death on Truth or Dare ’s website streaming on Max’s laptop. Zarah and Ingrid aren’t here, and I hope they’re sleeping. This is something I’ll need to explain to my sister, alone, in private.

Paulo’s sipping a drink, carelessly leaning against the bar. I can’t stop myself, and I go at him in a grief-filled rage. The glass flies out of his hand, spraying scotch onto the carpet. I pin him against the wall, my hands around his throat. He kicks at me, trying to swear and catch his breath at the same time.

Suddenly, it’s all too much, and I release him and sink to my knees.

“What’s going on? What happened?” Denton asks, rising off the loveseat.

“Stella’s dead. Paulo shot her.” I can’t meet anyone’s eyes. This was my plan, and her death is my fault.

“What the fuck, man?” he shouts, backing away from me, his hands in the air. “I did what I was supposed to do.”

I look at him. “I don’t believe you. You shot her, and she’s dead. How much did Ashton Black pay you to kill her?”

Paulo turns white and doesn’t utter another word.